Sold!

Thank you so much for all of your thoughts and prayers for the sale of our house. We came to an agreement with a buyer just today. We close in early December. And praise you, Saint Joseph, THANK YOU for your intercession, your love, your help.

House for Sale!

Well, I guess you never know who stops by to read this, so I decided to put a link to our house for sale in Topeka. It's been on the market for about a week now. If only we could have moved our house and backyard... I just loved it!

http://www.topekaareahomes.com/resident_detail.asp?Field1=142980

Yummy hands

Through most of October you couldn't open our freezer without seeing at least one frozen kool-aid hand resting inside. Mr.P and Sabrina are enjoying the fruits of their labor in this picture.

October

October was a fabulous month for us as far as Halloween and the welcoming of Autumn went. The house was hosed down with spider web and there were pumpkins and skulls on every shelf by the ending of the first week. And, boy, did we pack in the fun!!

Our first official Fall outing was to Sweet Berry Farm. It's a great pumpkin patch (or "punkin catch," as Mr.P affectionately calls it) which had loads of fun things for us to do. We saw a goat in a tree at their little petting zoo, went on a hay rack ride, had some faces painted, ate some of the most delicious homemade frozen treats ever (I went for the pumpkin ice cream while everyone else ate strawberry popsicles), and Camri and my nephew went through a 3 acre maze which took them over an hour. Wow, I know!

The weekdays were filled with things like cookie baking and jello making. We made gingerbread men that were supposed to be dressed with icing to look like mummies. We didn't quite get to the icing part. We'll have to try that again next year. We also made sugar cookie ghosts which I covered with white icing and sprinkled with large sugar crystals. I'm sorry to report that after tasting one, I had to get those out of the house. The neighbors and my nephews enjoyed them though. I just knew they were 5 pounds staring back at me after we finished them, so I gave them the boot. Don't worry, our kids got their share of them also. Did I mention that we made the gooiest caramel apples ever at my brother's house just last weekend? They were creamy and shiny and smooth and just gorgeous brown and sticking wonderfully to the most perfectly ripe, crisp Gala apples. Oh you should have been there, Mom! My mom and I never let a Halloween go by without having a caramel apple made from Kraft caramels. They're our weak spot. Actually, you can forget the apple. It's the caramels that we can't say no to, but they have to be Kraft. And after we cover the apples, we (and don't judge us!) chew on the wax paper to get the caramel off of that too. lol Hmmm...I wonder if she had one this year.

Last Sunday we carved pumpkins at my brother's house. I love the smell of a freshly opened pumpkin. I don't think I've ever missed my dad so much. He can carve a pumpkin from vine picked to a hollow happy face in under 3 minutes...well, maybe not 3, but he's pretty fast. We often tease him about that during this time of the year. We opened and scooped and carved and lit. Camri did me a great favor by becoming absorbed in saving the seeds so in a couple of days we had lots of salty pumpkin seeds to crunch on.

And now for the big day, Halloween, that is. Camri had a half day, so when Vanessa got home from school, we all jumped in the car and headed to Daddy's work. Families of the employees were able to come and trick or treat from desk to desk for a couple of hours in the afternoon. So we all arrived, Mr.P the dark Spiderman, Sabrina the princess, Vanessa the nurse, Camri the anime character, with candy buckets in hand. Keep in mind that this was just a little taste of trick or treating before we got down to business for real in the evening, or so I thought. Well, it turns out that our taste left us with approximately 20 pounds of candy! Can you believe that?! I thought, gosh that looks like a lot of candy so I weighed each bag to see. Each one was either just over or just under 5 pounds. Holy cow, no wonder Mr.P didn't want to hold his during that last lap! My mom found that to be a pretty funny story. The evening trick or treating was pretty normal. Ding dong, knock knock, trick or treat, wow you guys look cute, there you go, thank you! blah blah blah Afterwards we came home and watched Monster House, although I'm not sure how much of it we actually heard with all of the rustling and crunching going on. It was a nice sweet ending to October.

Sweet Berry Farm

Holiday house

We have this fun little terra cotta holiday house. We break it out for the months that have major holidays. We decorate it with candy which is glued on with canned frosting and all month we pick at it until it's gone, then I rinse it, stick it in the dishwasher and put it away for next time. It's a really cute idea. In this picture you can tell that Mr.P did more tasting than decorating.

The eyes have it

This picture is a little blurry because I couldn't stop laughing while I was taking it. Mr.P is showing some of his Papa's traits with some candy eyeballs.

Carving and yum

Mmm-mmm-mmmmm!

Pumpkin guts, anyone?

Ta-daaaaa!!

Costumes

Aaaand CUT!

There's so much catching up I have to do! I haven't kept up with this for such a long time. I've been pretty busy. I'm just gonna skip to the now and go back and cover some other stuff later.

Okay, about a week and a half ago, Camri and I were talking and she said, "Mommy, would you ever let me get a perm to straighten my hair?" I almost blurted out a nonchalant, "Sure, some time..." But instead, I thought for a second and decided to use this to my advantage (and hers, but she didn't realize it at the time.) Instead I told her, "I'll make you a deal. If you get your hair cut to at least your shoulders, then I'll let you get a straightening perm." I was shocked when she agreed...seriously, I mean shocked. I didn't want to waste any time because I was worried she'd think better of it and change her mind, so I got to work making phone calls, getting advice, and tracking down a hairstylist. Her appointment was set for this past Friday right after school. I think Vanessa and I were more excited than she was while we were waiting for Friday to get here. Finally the day came! As soon as she came through the door and gobbled up an after school snack, we all piled in the car. I asked her if she was nervous or excited and received the usual response, "Not really." Her nose was in a book the entire time, so I'm not even sure she heard the question. We walked into the salon and met Cynthia. **When you read the name Cynthia, be sure to make that sound of angels appearing in your head. I try to imagine her wearing a halo. lol**After a quick wash and dry, locks of hair began to fall gently to the floor one by one. Cynthia (halo sound) snipped and chatted and straightened her little heart out. The entire process took about an hour which was fine with me. When she was finished she asked Camri, "So do you like it?" Camri, who was still reading a book the entire time, looked in the mirror and said, "Uh-huh." And then it was back to the book. She's so expressive!! She loves it though. I think she was just feeling a little like a bug under a magnifying glass with all of us waiting for her reaction. I reassured Cynthia (halo sound) and told her what a great job she did. Then I tipped her some ridiculous amount and we were off. Here are a few pictures of the outcome. Isn't she lovely?

Bentley the Wonder Dog

Cannonball?

I think this is some kind of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon move, but I'm not sure. I asked for a cannonball. CANNONBAAAALLL!!!

Splash!!

This is a little blurry, but you get the picture. Weeee!!!

The twist

Look Mommy, I'm doing a twist!!

Splash!

Thumbs up!

Fish update

Within that same week that I had set the diving board goals for the kids, they were jumping off. I couldn't believe it. I thought it would take at least until August for us to coax them up there. We walked through the gate and saw the neighbor boy jump off and that's all it took for Mr.P. He wasn't getting punked out in his own hood. And Sabrina wasn't going to be outdone by them, so it was just one right after the other. I wish we had an underwater camera because Mr.P has the biggest smile on his face even while he's completely submerged. It's so cute!

Sprinkler fun

View larger pix

Did you know that you can click on any of the pictures that I post and they will become a larger view?

Softball pix

Happy Birthday Camri!!

Happy 12th birthday Camri! Well, with all of the scheduling and rescheduling we had to do with Camri's birthday party, surprisingly it went pretty well. Because of the rain, her softball tournament was rescheduled and rescheduled and rescheduled again. We had to reschedule the sleepover twice and the birthday party once. Whew! Because so many of her friends play softball and had tournaments also, only half of them showed up to swim, but many of them showed up later for the after party. We hung out, grilled out, and pigged out. Jeremy manned the grill and everyone had a really good time. Later, we hung out in the driveway with a few of the neighbors and watched a really good firework show coming from somewhere pretty close. Camri and her friends lit some of her fireworks that she had gotten for a present and they chilled out in the bed of Jeremy's truck watching the show.

Ducky

I had just woke up from a short nap and Mommy wanted me to come outside so that she could take my picture with the new camera. I'm crying because I wanted to take the picture.

Baby talk

Here are some words that need to be documented:

Payton:
Lemme shosha = let me show you, pronounced lemmee show-shuh
Jean bug= June bug
Pish= fish
Messa= Vanessa
Teethbrush= toothbrush
Belwee= Bentley, pronounced with a very soft l
TB= TV
Cool Javi= Uncle Javi
Srreal= cereal, pronounced like cereal without the first e
Apple-ox= applesauce

Sabrina:
The next dark outside= tomorrow night
Junior bug= June bug
Belly= Bentley

Vanessa (when she was little):
Schoo-you'll= school
Tress= dress
Leezy= Lizzy

Camri (when she was little):
Spin the night= spend the night
Tin-tones= Flintstones
Aminal= animal
Da-yee= daddy
Footfriends= footprints
Soft me= gently tickle me

Rash!

I have acquired some kind of rash on my face, lucky me! It started last Saturday morning, very subtle. By Monday, it was very obvious. These little bumps all over the bottom and top of my mouth, outside, not in. By Wednesday, it was around the outside of my left eye and on its pathetic way behind both of my ears. What the heck? Uncomfortable! Besides being annoying, it only bothers me when it itches. I can't scratch it because it stings when I do. I don't look like the Elephant Man or anything, except that I LOVE MAKEUP and can't wear any :( Last night I couldn't sleep and went to bed around 1. Around 1:30 I got up and went to bed again around 3. I don't know when I actually fell asleep, but thankfully Mr.P woke me up around 9:15 and I was able to make it to my appointment at 9:45. Apparently I had an allergic reaction to nothing that we can ever pinpoint...so that's great. Anyway, I'm on some kind of medicine now that I have to take lots of during the first few days and then it tapers down. I'm writing about this so you will pity me. PITY ME!
Here's the sweet part. Around 2 today, I got really tired and called Vanessa and Camri to the kitchen where Mr.P and Sabrina were keeping me busy. I asked them if they would keep the babies busy for an hour while I took a nap. Without thinking twice, they both agreed and Vanessa took charge by asking the babies if they wanted to watch a movie in their rooms. She got their movies going (2 separate ones, of course) while Camri asked if I wanted her to wake me up by a certain time. Yes, in one hour please. Oh my bed never looked so good! I woke up to Camri's cool hand on my hand and a quiet house. Sabrina was still watching a movie and Mr. had fallen asleep. My babies, Camri and Vanessa, are the best!

Fish

It seems like everyone is referring to their kids as fish these days. Last week I took the kids to the pool out north and I think we're going to try to make it there once a week now. Our neighbor, John, also is very generous with his pool. He opens it to the neighbors a few evenings out of the week and normally on the weekends if he's in town. Camri's always been a good little swimmer and is keeping it up. Vanessa has her mind set on learning how to dive. She hasn't quite learned to jump along with all of the other stuff (head down, arms out, toes on edge, blah blah blah), but I'm sure she'll do it perfectly by the end of the summer. Sabrina, who wouldn't get off of the steps last year, now walks around in water that comes just under her chin. She's become quite good at paddling around and retrieving things from the bottom too. She's always impressed with herself when she touches the floor of the pool. Mr.P insisted on being carried around up until a couple of weeks ago and now will jump in to any area (including the deep end) of the pool and paddle around with no problem. This is with a life vest on, of course. I don't think he realizes that it's the life vest that's allowing him to float which scares me a little when I think of him maybe jumping into water without one. He loves it though. One of the neighbors thinks he looks like a little otter. My goal for them is to jump off of the diving board by the end of the summer. It's still too scary for them right now. Snapshots are coming!

Last day!

It's our last day of school!!

I'm a 7th grader!!



I'm a 4th grader!!

Coconut milk

We're liking this kind of coconut milk!

Coconut

During my last post, I went off on a tangent about cleaning when all I really wanted to do was explain why we were eating on the kitchen floor. Did you notice the vacuum in the background? I even had to change the title of the post from "Coconut" to "Cleaning." Hmmm...I didn't realize I had so much to write about that.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago Sabrina was at the mall with me and she noticed a coconut in the window of Bath&Body. She informed Mr.P and I that it was a coconut and then thought better about it and told us that it was not because "coconuts don't have hair on them." I told her that they do and that she was right the first time, it is a coconut. She thought about that for a second, then let me know that coconuts have milk inside of them. On the way home we had to stop at Dillons, so guess what we bought. I wanted the kids to try it. When I was little, I remember my dad would bring home different fruits once in a while and it was always a treat. Coconuts and pomegranates were always my favorites. I remember us kids often trying to trick my mom into drinking the milk by telling her it was water. Now that I'm older it makes me laugh to think about it. The milk actually looks like dirty water and always has floaties in it from the shell, not to mention that it smells like coconut. Who the heck would think that was water? lol THEN, we'd always want him to try his best to crack it open perfectly down the middle so that we could drink out of the two halves like they did on Gilligan's Island. Okay, so anyway it winds up being just Mr. and Sabrina because Vanessa and Camri are spending the night at friend's houses. As soon as we're done with dinner, Sabrina runs for the coconut and asks Daddy to open it. He drills holes through the eyes and pours the milk into a bowl. She looks at it skeptically as I'm urging her to taste it. She was probably expecting cow's milk, as any 4 year old would. She tastes it anyway and is thoroughly disgusted. Mr.P sees this and won't come near the stuff. I don't blame her, I don't like it either. Onto the next quest...cracking the shell! We huddle around Jeremy and Sabrina directs him to open it right down the middle. I noticed when I bought it that they sell them with divets down the middle so that it cracks open easier, I guess. He gets it open and the meat is nice and smooth white inside. I have a butterknife trying to pry the first piece out and finally some comes loose. The kids are not impressed. What? How can this be? I loved this stuff when I was little! Both of them give me an "I don't like it" face when they taste it and Payton actually spit his half-chewed piece in the trash. What they do like, however, is watching me struggle to get each piece out. I pry the knife under a tiny edge of the meat and a piece will go flying across the room when it comes loose. They scream and laugh and run to get it. It gets plopped in the bowl and they're ready for more. I don't remember my dad making this kind of mess when I was little. Hmmm... Finally every piece is out and the shells are empty. I still have this need in me to put liquid in them and use them for drinking, so I filled them with milk. I gave the one with the holes to Sabrina and showed her how to plug them with her little fingers while she drank. I wound up eating most of the coconut which didn't taste as sweet as I think it should have. Maybe I'll buy another one midsummer and see if it's better. As for the shells, they've become bath toys.

Cleaning

I often (every week or two) get the notion to scrub the wood floors down. "Just do it with a mop or use the Swiffer, " Jeremy used to tell me. I never did and he grew tired of rolling his eyes, so he never brings it up anymore. I don't know...I just don't think anything can clean the floor as well as I do when I'm down there scrubbing it myself. So the thing is, is that this is a process. I have to have everything taken out of the room that I'm doing and if I start somewhat late in the day (meaning around 2 or after), then the furniture probably isn't going to be back to normal until the next day or maybe even the day after that depending how busy (or lazy) I get. I forgot to mention that I'm also a floater when it comes to cleaning. If it's a small job then I get the whole thing done, but if it's something big and there are lots of other things to do, then I do a little of this and jump to something else. Example: I may move all of the furniture out of the kitchen and get out the vacuum. Aha, didn't I tell myself that I would dust the cabinets today? So I start doing that but when I get to around the sink I notice that I would have more room to step (because I have to walk on the counters to get the high cabinets) if the dishes from the night before are out of the way. I do the dishes (this is one of the things I get completely done with). As I'm finishing them up, I hear the buzz of the dryer. Good, I was waiting for that. I get the clothes out of the dryer and put more in the washer. Now I have to fold the ones out of the dryer because I hate if they sit in the basket and get wrinkled. Laundry for a family of six is a daily task. If you go a couple of days without doing it, watch out! Okay, well the sink is empty, so I may as well fill the bucket for the floor job. Wait, I need to vacuum still... And so on and so forth. As this goes on, I'm normally taking care of things like, "I'm hungry!" or "Mr.P called me a baby brat!!" or "Can Abigale and Amelia come in and play?" etc. So if you ever come through the door and things look sort of half done, now you know why. There IS a method to my madness :)

Mr.P eating

I'm a really good eater. See how clean my face is and I'm almost done! I don't like to waste a taste ;)

Sabrina's Sleep

It's amazing how kids can fall asleep any old way. In this picture, all of the other kids were in bed already and Sabrina wanted to stay up and color. Neither Jeremy nor I minded, partially because we were both studying and partially because it was just easier to let her stay up than coax her into bed. She kept talking to us about what she was coloring and which colors she was using. After a few minutes of silence, I looked up to find her asleep in this position. I guess she was sleepier than she thought. This is normally the case.

Haircuts

Yesterday evening, sometime after dinner, I told Camri to take a shower so that I could cut her hair. "Cut? Or trim?" she asked with an alarmed sound in her voice. We had talked about her needing a trim a few weeks ago. I told her it was just a trim. Vanessa hopped up and ran to the shower too and asked if I could give her a half-cut/half-trim. What the heck does that mean? I think she wanted a trim with maybe a little more than normal taken off. For anyone reading this, I don't actually know how to cut hair. I'm sure it's uneven when I'm done, but who's going to follow them around measuring? This isn't the first time I've cut their hair either. So anyway, I get done with Vanessa and it's Camri's turn. Okay, I'm not sure what took over me. I just couldn't help myself. All of that dead old hair was taunting me to give it a whack. So instead of cutting just a few inches, I cut about 5 or 6. Okay, more towards 6. Well, she also has Jeremy's hair which gets pretty wavy as it dries. So when it was all dry, I thought, uh-oh. Well honestly, one part of me was thinking uh-oh, while the other part was rubbing my hands together and laughing evily. Is "evily" a word? So we go to the bathroom and as I'm showing Vanessa a few different things she can do to her hair, Camri has a serious look on her face and pursed lips. "What's wrong Camri?" "Well, I just didn't want this much cut from my hair. I like it really long and now it's not. " So I told her to hold on while I was finishing Vanessa up and when I went to ask her if she wanted me to blow it dry, she had tears welling up. At this point, I'm feeling the guilt set in. Rats! So I blew it dry and straightened it for her. Ah, the power of the Chi! That did add some length, as anyone who's ever straightened their hair would know. Well, I got done with her and showed her a few different hairstyles that she could do with it and by the time I left the bathroom, she was flipping around bangs and checking herself out like she was on America's Next Top Model. Whew! Got myself out of that one. As she's leaving the bathroom she tells me that this is how most of the kids at school like her hair...down and straightened. Apparently a vote was taken. That's how she left for school this morning. When she walked through the door again, it was in a ponytail. Surprise!

Also, Jeremy picked her up from school early for an eye appointment. She is now the proud wearer of contacts. Yay! She's been waiting for these for a while. We figured that summer was a good time for her to get used to them and she is starting middle school in the fall. She looks great in them too. She has those big beautiful brown eyes and long long eyelashes that were never appreciated behind glasses. I hope she takes good care of them...

Beginnings

Well, I'm going to give this blog thing a try. There are so many times that we're sitting at dinner, or just lounging around the house or outside and I'm thinking how quickly our babies are growing and there are so many little moments and mispronounced words that we smile about and quickly forget. I've often thought about emailing letters here and there to people, but this way, I can go at my own pace and you can catch up when you have time.

Yesterday Payton, Sabrina and I took Bentley to the vet. He's had a loose stool problem since we came home from Austin back in January, although I told the vet it had been just a month or two (didn't want to sound too incompetent). So we had to wait for what seemed like an eternity in the waiting room where they have lots of open space and one play kitchen for the kids. Luckily the kids weren't acting too crazy because I was having some trouble holding Bentley on his leash while he acted like a bull in a china shop. He wanted to make friends with every dog (and cat) that came in, but not all of them were friendly back. Finally, they called us into another room where Bentley would be checked out. After he was weighed and listened to, they took a stool sample from him and told me it would be another 10-15 minutes. Are you kidding me? This time they took Bentley with them, but Payton and Sabrina were getting a little restless. I transformed myself into the vet and Payton quickly became a dog while Sabrina opted for a cat. I checked their ears, noses, eyes, etc. This was going fine until they realized that there was a dark area under the counter perfect for their home. Apparently I was outvoted on why we shouldn't crawl around on the floor while licking eachothers faces. When we left there, we could have made a pair of fuzzy slippers from all of the hair they picked up. As for Bentley, they couldn't find anything wrong, so I guess we just have to live with Mr. Chronic Diahrrea.